Welcome to the dead end of the city shadows in Valdemingómez on the outskirts of Madrid: a lawless landscape of drugs and violence where the third world meets the Wild West. Having had three national ...
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Welcome to the dead end of the city shadows in Valdemingómez on the outskirts of Madrid: a lawless landscape of drugs and violence where the third world meets the Wild West. Having had three national research proposals rejected, Briggs and Monge entered this area with no institutional support or formal funding. With only patience, some cigarettes and a mobile phone, they slowly gained the trust of those who live and visit one of Europe's most problematic ghettos, and collected images and testimonies from drug addicts, gypsies, residents, police, and harm-reduction staff. The result is this disturbing but moving account of how a forgotten population of people survive in a desolate misery having fallen casualty to various social, political and economic processes, and as a consequence, internalize and reproduce this suffering through destructive forms of drug use which compromises their own health and wellbeing. The text also charts how neoliberal governance and rampant corruption have produced this area of spatial inequality: a place which lacks infrastructure, decent public health and is controlled by oppressive urban social control structures which are charged with intervening on this haven for organised crime, drug dealing, and brutal forms of violence. Briggs and Monge two-year study use the words and photos from these peoples’ personal stymies and their work is testament to what is possible beyond the realms of increasingly bureacratised academic research structures and biased funding calls.Less

Dead-End Lives : Drugs and Violence in the City Shadows

Daniel BriggsRubén Monge Gamero

Published in print: 2017-11-08

Welcome to the dead end of the city shadows in Valdemingómez on the outskirts of Madrid: a lawless landscape of drugs and violence where the third world meets the Wild West. Having had three national research proposals rejected, Briggs and Monge entered this area with no institutional support or formal funding. With only patience, some cigarettes and a mobile phone, they slowly gained the trust of those who live and visit one of Europe's most problematic ghettos, and collected images and testimonies from drug addicts, gypsies, residents, police, and harm-reduction staff. The result is this disturbing but moving account of how a forgotten population of people survive in a desolate misery having fallen casualty to various social, political and economic processes, and as a consequence, internalize and reproduce this suffering through destructive forms of drug use which compromises their own health and wellbeing. The text also charts how neoliberal governance and rampant corruption have produced this area of spatial inequality: a place which lacks infrastructure, decent public health and is controlled by oppressive urban social control structures which are charged with intervening on this haven for organised crime, drug dealing, and brutal forms of violence. Briggs and Monge two-year study use the words and photos from these peoples’ personal stymies and their work is testament to what is possible beyond the realms of increasingly bureacratised academic research structures and biased funding calls.

Although as recently as the 1970s patients had virtually no voice in FDA’s regulation of drugs, today patient advocates regularly use various administrative mechanisms to influence and even directly ...
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Although as recently as the 1970s patients had virtually no voice in FDA’s regulation of drugs, today patient advocates regularly use various administrative mechanisms to influence and even directly advise the agency on issues regarding drug development, access, and approval. This chapter explores a constellation of trends and events that underlie this dramatic shift, examines the current role of patients in drug regulation, and considers the future of patient-focused drug development.Less

FDA and the Rise of the Empowered Patient

Lewis A. Grossman

Published in print: 2015-09-29

Although as recently as the 1970s patients had virtually no voice in FDA’s regulation of drugs, today patient advocates regularly use various administrative mechanisms to influence and even directly advise the agency on issues regarding drug development, access, and approval. This chapter explores a constellation of trends and events that underlie this dramatic shift, examines the current role of patients in drug regulation, and considers the future of patient-focused drug development.

This chapter concentrates on federal prosecutions and the unique issues and problems they present. It begins by presenting the role of the federal prosecutor. The extent to which federal prosecutors ...
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This chapter concentrates on federal prosecutions and the unique issues and problems they present. It begins by presenting the role of the federal prosecutor. The extent to which federal prosecutors in individual offices follow the policies and procedures in the U.S. attorneys' manual depends largely on the U.S. attorney in charge of each office. In sum, although the U.S. attorneys' manual seems to establish meaningful policies governing a broad range of criminal issues, its unenforceability renders it largely ineffective as a means of regulating prosecutorial power and discretion. There is no phenomenon better that illustrates the dire consequences of the exercise of federal prosecutorial discretion than the “War on Drugs”. Moreover, the influence of Booker on prosecutorial power is addressed. In addition, the chapter examines some of the decisions made by Richard Thornburgh and John Ashcroft.Less

Federal Prosecutors and the Power of the Attorney General

Angela J. Davis

Published in print: 2009-04-24

This chapter concentrates on federal prosecutions and the unique issues and problems they present. It begins by presenting the role of the federal prosecutor. The extent to which federal prosecutors in individual offices follow the policies and procedures in the U.S. attorneys' manual depends largely on the U.S. attorney in charge of each office. In sum, although the U.S. attorneys' manual seems to establish meaningful policies governing a broad range of criminal issues, its unenforceability renders it largely ineffective as a means of regulating prosecutorial power and discretion. There is no phenomenon better that illustrates the dire consequences of the exercise of federal prosecutorial discretion than the “War on Drugs”. Moreover, the influence of Booker on prosecutorial power is addressed. In addition, the chapter examines some of the decisions made by Richard Thornburgh and John Ashcroft.

The normalisation of drug use which came in the wake of the transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy, was exacerbated by a collective ideological feeling of “freedom” and loose attitudes ...
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The normalisation of drug use which came in the wake of the transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy, was exacerbated by a collective ideological feeling of “freedom” and loose attitudes to drug consumption. However, as the drug markets expanded, principally across urban areas which had started to disintegrate as a consequence of deindustrialisation, addiction and HIV soared. The AIDS epidemic which thereafter followed in the 1980s was eventually curbed with the delayed introduction of drug awareness campaigns and harm reduction initiatives. Even these, however, couldn’t stop the increasing punitive approaches to dealing with high levels of urban crime. Police powers were expanded, the penal code was amended and the prisons started to fill with drug-dependent offenders. This chapter charts these shifts and provides the further foundation to the findings of the study which follow in Chapter 5.
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Drugs, cultural change and drug markets

Daniel BriggsRubén Monge Gamero

Published in print: 2017-11-08

The normalisation of drug use which came in the wake of the transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy, was exacerbated by a collective ideological feeling of “freedom” and loose attitudes to drug consumption. However, as the drug markets expanded, principally across urban areas which had started to disintegrate as a consequence of deindustrialisation, addiction and HIV soared. The AIDS epidemic which thereafter followed in the 1980s was eventually curbed with the delayed introduction of drug awareness campaigns and harm reduction initiatives. Even these, however, couldn’t stop the increasing punitive approaches to dealing with high levels of urban crime. Police powers were expanded, the penal code was amended and the prisons started to fill with drug-dependent offenders. This chapter charts these shifts and provides the further foundation to the findings of the study which follow in Chapter 5.

In this chapter we show how these structural and cultural experiences are important because they all play a part in their foreground subjective decisions and actions to try and return to drugs. The ...
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In this chapter we show how these structural and cultural experiences are important because they all play a part in their foreground subjective decisions and actions to try and return to drugs. The people who we met in Valdemingómez are from seriously deprived zones of urban centres, poor rural areas and/or are immigrants who have struggled with life in Spain. Many of these people had disrupted families, grew up in poverty and where crime and drugs was often all around them, did poorly in schools, and often had temporary stints in various types of precarious work industries such as construction, and other manual labour posts. Further investment in drugs does not necessarily occur because of their ‘addictive propensity’ – although this is not to deny that drugs have compulsive properties - but because of the motivation these people associate with the need to continue to us drugs to deal with changing situations of their lives such as failing to get an education or work. Addiction is further accelerated by the structural processes we pointed out in the previous chapters which produces variations of “dependence displacement” as they are moved from “poblado to poblado”. This culminates in a “dependence acceleration” when they come to stay/live in Valdemingómez.Less

Journeys to dependence

Daniel BriggsRubén Monge Gamero

Published in print: 2017-11-08

In this chapter we show how these structural and cultural experiences are important because they all play a part in their foreground subjective decisions and actions to try and return to drugs. The people who we met in Valdemingómez are from seriously deprived zones of urban centres, poor rural areas and/or are immigrants who have struggled with life in Spain. Many of these people had disrupted families, grew up in poverty and where crime and drugs was often all around them, did poorly in schools, and often had temporary stints in various types of precarious work industries such as construction, and other manual labour posts. Further investment in drugs does not necessarily occur because of their ‘addictive propensity’ – although this is not to deny that drugs have compulsive properties - but because of the motivation these people associate with the need to continue to us drugs to deal with changing situations of their lives such as failing to get an education or work. Addiction is further accelerated by the structural processes we pointed out in the previous chapters which produces variations of “dependence displacement” as they are moved from “poblado to poblado”. This culminates in a “dependence acceleration” when they come to stay/live in Valdemingómez.

Our progression toward humane treatment for some groups stretches across generations, illustrated in this chapter by the long U.S. history of dehumanizing and oppressing blacks from slavery through ...
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Our progression toward humane treatment for some groups stretches across generations, illustrated in this chapter by the long U.S. history of dehumanizing and oppressing blacks from slavery through Jim Crow and beyond. Although we may look back with disdain on past generations that enslaved or segregated blacks, this chapter questions whether we have fully humanized African Americans given the continued crisis in image, economic condition, and legal treatment of this group. Specifically, in light of the current mass-incarceration campaign directed at blacks as part of the War on Drugs, carried out by racial profiling, we might ask how far removed, if at all, we are from the oppressive days we supposedly abhor. The chapter begins the reparative work by suggesting legal reforms to surmount the current oppressions on what has proved to be the long road to humanity for African Americans.Less

From Slavery to the New Jim Crow of Mass Incarceration : The Ongoing Dehumanization of African Americans

Steven W. Bender

Published in print: 2015-01-09

Our progression toward humane treatment for some groups stretches across generations, illustrated in this chapter by the long U.S. history of dehumanizing and oppressing blacks from slavery through Jim Crow and beyond. Although we may look back with disdain on past generations that enslaved or segregated blacks, this chapter questions whether we have fully humanized African Americans given the continued crisis in image, economic condition, and legal treatment of this group. Specifically, in light of the current mass-incarceration campaign directed at blacks as part of the War on Drugs, carried out by racial profiling, we might ask how far removed, if at all, we are from the oppressive days we supposedly abhor. The chapter begins the reparative work by suggesting legal reforms to surmount the current oppressions on what has proved to be the long road to humanity for African Americans.

This chapter thoroughly describes the data we use to test our hypotheses. Included in that description is a discussion of the five issue areas we study: immigration, narcotics, terrorism, weapons, ...
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This chapter thoroughly describes the data we use to test our hypotheses. Included in that description is a discussion of the five issue areas we study: immigration, narcotics, terrorism, weapons, and white-collar. The chapter considers the salience and complexity of these substantive areas and characterizes partisan preferences in each as they relate to case filings and sentence length. It also explores how trends in both filings and sentencing have changed over time and provides descriptive evidence about changes in the centralization of priorities across issue areas within the DOJ. Additionally, the chapter contains an overview of the post-service careers of U.S. Attorneys (USAs).Less

Describing the Data and Issue Areas

Banks MillerBrett Curry

Published in print: 2018-12-03

This chapter thoroughly describes the data we use to test our hypotheses. Included in that description is a discussion of the five issue areas we study: immigration, narcotics, terrorism, weapons, and white-collar. The chapter considers the salience and complexity of these substantive areas and characterizes partisan preferences in each as they relate to case filings and sentence length. It also explores how trends in both filings and sentencing have changed over time and provides descriptive evidence about changes in the centralization of priorities across issue areas within the DOJ. Additionally, the chapter contains an overview of the post-service careers of U.S. Attorneys (USAs).